come with me and I will stake my life upon it; and if I play thee false, do thou slay me by a death most pitiful."

And yet the queen doubted, and said, “Let me go down and see my son, and these men that are slain, and the man who slew 5 them."

So she went, and sat in the twilight by the other wall, and Ulysses sat by a pillar, with eyes cast down, waiting till his wife should speak to him. But she was sore perplexed; for now she seemed to know him, and now she knew him not, being in 10 such evil case, for he had not suffered that the women should put new robes upon him.

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And Telemachus said, "Mother, sittest thou apart from my father, and speakest not to him? Surely thy heart is harder than a stone."

But Ulysses said, "Let be, Telemachus. Thy mother will know that which is true in good time."

Meanwhile Ulysses went to the bath, and clothed himself in bright apparel, and came back to the hall, and Athene made him fair and young to see. Then he sat down as before, over against 20 his wife, and said—

"Surely, O lady, the gods have made thee harder of heart than all women besides. Would other wife have kept away from her husband, coming back now after twenty years?"

Then Penelope knew him that he was her husband indeed, 25 and ran to him, and threw her arms about him and kissed him,

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saying, "Forgive me, my lord, if I was slow to know thee; for ever I feared, so many wiles have men, that some one should deceive me, saying that he was my husband. But now I know this, that thou art he and not another."

And they wept over each other and kissed each other.

And on the morrow Ulysses went forth to the well-wooded farm land to see his father, the old Laertes. Quickly he came to the well-ordered farm. There was the house, and all about it ran the huts. He found his father alone in the garden 35 digging about a plant. Ulysses questioned him and saw that his

father knew him not. As Laertes spoke of his son, now gone these twenty years, he broke down with grief. Then the heart of Ulysses was moved, and he sprang towards him and fell on his neck and kissed him, saying, "Behold, I here, even I, my father, 5 am the man of whom thou speakest, in the twentieth year am I

come to mine own country. But stay thy weeping, for I will tell thee all clearly. I have slain the wooers in our halls and avenged their evil deeds."

Then Laertes answered him, "If thou art indeed Ulysses, 10 mine own child, show me now a manifest token, that I may be assured." Then Ulysses answered him, “Look first on this scar and consider it, that the boar dealt me with his white tusk on Parnassus. But come, and I will even tell thee the trees through all the terraced garden, which thou gavest me once for mine 15 own, and I was begging of thee this and that, being but a little

child, and following thee through the garden. Through these very trees we were going, and thou didst tell me the names of each of them. Pear trees thirteen thou gavest me and ten apple trees and figs two-score, and, as we went, thou didst name 20 the fifty rows of vines thou wouldst give me, whereof each one

ripened at divers times, with all manner of clusters on their boughs, when the seasons of Zeus wrought mightily on them from on high."

So he spake, and the heart of Laertes melted within him, 25 as he knew the sure tokens that Ulysses showed him. About his dear son he cast his arms and spake, "Father Zeus, verily ye gods yet bare sway on high Olympus, for now my son hath returned and the wooers have paid for their insolent pride.”

So did Ulysses come back to his home after twenty years.

HELPS TO STUDY

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Historical: The story of Ulysses is told in Homer's Odyssey, one of the oldest of the world's great poems. Like The Iliad," it was written in the Greek language. There are many translations in both verse and prose. Among the best known verse translations is one by William Cullen Bryant, from which the verse extracts in this story are taken. The poem is called "The Odyssey," from the

Greek name of the hero, Odysseus, who is better known to us by his Latin name, Ulysses. (For sketch of Homer, see Note, p. 173.)

Ulysses was king of Ithaca, a small, rugged isle west of Greece. Agamemnon was a kind of over-lord of all the kings of Greece and the neighboring Greek islands. He called upon all the kings to help win back Helen, wife of his brother, Menelaus, from Paris, son of Priam, king of Troy. Ulysses left his home for Troy when he had been but lately married to Penelope and his son Telemachus was but an infant. When Troy was taken, in the tenth year of the war, and Helen was restored to Menelaus, king of Sparta, Ulysses began his homeward voyage. If he had doubled the cape of Malea in safety he would probably have found Penelope unvexed by wooers and his son, Telemachus, a lad ten years old. But the north wind drove him far out of his course and he encountered the giant, Polyphemus, who called down upon Ulysses, the wrath of his father, Poseidon, because Ulysses put out the giant's one eye. To avenge

"The

this act, Poseidon drove him wandering for ten long years. Odyssey'' tells the story of the wanderings and adventures of Ulysses during his homeward journey.

Notes and Questions

Though many places mentioned in this story are mythical, yet many of them may be found, and the journey of Ulysses traced, on a map of the world, as known in Homeric times. Notice how the gods take sides in this story. Why did Aphrodite favor the Trojans and Here and Athene the Greeks? Chapter One: What was the story of the Apple of Discord? Why had Ulysses gone to Troy? Review the story of the fall of Troy.

How many ships and men had Ulysses when he left Troy? How did this compare with the number he had with him when he left Ithaca ten years before?

Describe the adventure with the
Ciconians.

What effect did the eating of the
lotus have upon men?
What characteristics does Ulysses

show in the adventure with
Polyphemus?

What do you think of Polyphemus

when he speaks to the ram? What was the curse of Poseidon? As you read the story, note how this curse was fulfilled. Chapter Two: What reason had

Eolus for thinking that Ulysses was hated by the gods? The Læstrygonians were a mythical race of cannibal giants. Some writers locate them on the island of Sicily. How many ships were left after the adventure with the Læstrygonians?

BOOK III

THE STORY OF ENEAS

CHAPTER ONE

THE FALL OF TROY

FOR ten years King Agamemnon and the men of Greece laid siege to Troy. But though sentence had gone forth against the city, yet the day of its fall tarried, because certain of the gods loved it well and defended it, as Phoebus, and Mars, the god of 5 war, and Jupiter himself. Wherefore Minerva put it into the heart of Epeius, Lord of the Isles, that he should make a cunning device wherewith to take the city. Now the device was this: he made a great horse of wood, feigning it to be a peace-offering to Minerva, that the Greeks might have a safe return to their 10 homes. In the body of this there hid themselves certain of the bravest of the chiefs, as Menelaus and Ulysses and Pyrrhus, son of Achilles-but Achilles himself was dead, slain by Paris, Phoebus helping, even as he was about to take the city-and others also, and with them Epeius himself. But the rest of the 15 people made as if they had departed to their homes; only they went not further than Tenedos, which was an island near to the coast.

Great joy was there in Troy when it was noised abroad that the men of Greece had departed. The gates were opened, and 20 the people went forth to see the plain and the camp. And one said to another, as they went, "Here they set the battle in array, and there were the tents of the fierce Achilles, and there lay the ships." And some stood and marvelled at the great peaceoffering to Minerva, even the horse of wood.

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And Thymotes, who was one of the elders of the city, was the first who advised that it should be brought within the walls phe bus e pi'ůs pir'us ten'e dos thi mē'tēz